EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is one in a series of excepts from award-winning author and historian, John B. “Red” Cummings Jr.'s new book, “Cream of the Crop — Fall River's Best and Brightest,” which will be available for sale locally in June.

Comment

By John B. “Red” Cummings Jr.

The Herald News, Fall River, MA

By John B. “Red” Cummings Jr.

Posted Mar. 29, 2014 at 1:00 PM

By John B. “Red” Cummings Jr.

Posted Mar. 29, 2014 at 1:00 PM

» Social News

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is one in a series of excepts from award-winning author and historian, John B. “Red” Cummings Jr.’s new book, “Cream of the Crop — Fall River’s Best and Brightest,” which will be available for sale locally in June. The book highlights Fall River-educated individuals in various categories such as business, military, religion, education and sports between 1850 and the present. The collection of more than 260 illustrated mini-biographies will be available at various local outlets and all branches of BayCoast Bank, with a portion of each bank sale going to local charity.

Profile

Matthew Chaloner Durfee Borden was born in 1842 to Colonel Richard and Abby Durfee Borden. He married his relative Harriett M. Durfee and they had 7 children. Borden died at his summer home in Oceanic, N.J., in 1912.

Experience

He was referred to as M.C.D. Borden or by his nickname, “The Calico King.” In 1865 he became a stock boy in a leading New York dry goods house. Within three years he had become a partner in a commission house where he represented American Print Works as a selling agent before its failure in 1879.

Together with his older brother, Thomas, he reorganized the firm under the name of The American Printing Company. In 1887, the Calico King bought out his brother and built three large print mills, The Iron Works, on 20 acres along the Taunton River (years later to be the site of two major Firestone fires). Eventually, the property was bought by Tillotson Corporation and Borden Remington, which owns the site to this date. The Iron Works produced 70,000 pieces of print cloth per week.

Education

Local Fall River schools, Phillips Academy Andover and Yale University.

Skills

The Calico King was considered the largest manufacturer and printer of calico cloth in the world.

Also of Note

Borden’s father, Colonel Richard Borden, founded Fall River Iron Works and was the first president of the Fall River National Bank in 1825. In 1893, while “another” Borden was being charged with brutal murders, it was M.C.D. who was making the greatest impact upon the Spindle City as the textile capital of the world.

In 1898, the Fall River Boys Club was dedicated as a result of a generous gift by Borden who was unable to attend. At the time, it was called by many “the finest building of its kind in the country, yes, in the world.”

When Borden died in 1912 during the Fall River Cotton Centennial, his estate was valued at more than $5 million. All of it but $250,000 (a bequest to Yale) went to his sons.